General Motors Goes Electric, Again

After the failed experiment of an all-electric car in the late 1990s, General Motors unveiled a new concept all-electric car at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. According to GM, the concept could become reality if battery pack technology advances in the right direction in the next two to three years. I suddenly lost interest in the article after that misstep, and stopped reading altogether when I came to this line: "The Volt [name of concept car] is designed to run for 40 miles on pure electric power, making it marketable for everyday family use." Most Americans do not want to worry whether their car is reaching the end of battery-life like they do with their cell phones, lap-tops, or i-pods. Also, most Americans do not want to buy a car only for commuting with no deviations from the daily routine. And to top it off, the largest car market in the United States, Southern California, has average commute mileage of way more than 40 miles. Infrastructure and business incentives will be added to the marketing of this vehicle so that work-places will be encouraged to let their employees suck at the electricity teat during the work hours. They claim a higher speed than the EV1 disaster, but give no specifics.

Also, touting the pure electric route just pushes emissions liabilities on to the power plants, so it really isn't a "green" decision to drive this car. New power plants have not been built over the last 25 years because of environmental concerns, bureaucracy, and legal stalling. The new alternative renewable sources coming on-line in the next decade represent barely a drop in the bucket that current coal, oil, and nuclear plants provide. As the political climate buys in to the hoax of curbing carbon emissions, but still actively blocks nuclear solutions, choosing a boutique electric car will become an expense, not a saver. GM should concentrate on making automatic transmissions more fuel conservative than manual transmissions, that would be a good start. And they should listen to the unspoken real number one concern in their marketing surveys for consumer preferences: horsepower. Everything else but gas mileage is politically correct pablum that gets thrown by the wayside when people actually buy their cars.

Update: The bro contributes a link to a story that explains the recharging unit in better detail, which could actually make this concept a seller. The Reuters link only has this on the recharging generator: "The Volt's combustion engine is designed only as a supplement to keep its batteries charged, an innovation GM executives hope will help the automaker jump ahead of Toyota Motor Corp., which now dominates the hybrid market." Please forgive my ignorance. However, the main point still stands, none of this makes any difference until the battery technology works with the concept. If it does, then I can totally see this 1 liter hybrid actually working. But, battery tech, along with concerns of current designs over-heating, is the big "if" on this concept. We wouldn't want these new cars catching on fire in the middle of the freeway, would we?